Who says a Subway will be as successful or successful at all? History? Statistics? What if THAT market changes? (i.e. Boston Chicken). Ever see a McDonalds, Burger King or Seven-Eleven franchise go out of business? I have. I've seen many "sure thing" business ideas go down the tubes after wrecking marriages and bank accounts. 40: I'm sure you've read this before, but it's good to see again... 1 - The only certainty is that there is no certainty. 2 - Every decision has a consequence. It is a matter of weighing probabilities. 3 - Despite uncertainty, we must decide and we must act. 4 - We need to judge a decision, not only on results, but on how a decision was made. There is no RIGHT decision. They're all just decisions. Good Luck, Craig
Yup! Subway has one of the biggest problems with oversaturation and encroachment litigation. http://www.ebsn.com/_pages/PressRel/pr03161998Subway.htm http://www.vegsource.com/articles/subway_vegan.htm
I'm sorry if I've offended some of you with my life choices. At one time my income was probably in the top 5% of working people in the US. If I had told a guidance counselor in 9th grade of my plans to generate an income that would be higher than 95% of the population, I'm sure I would've met skepticism. Likewise, how many marketing strategists are there in the US? Probably less than 1,000. I've beaten the odds before. I'm not going into this with wild expectations or a desire to trade until I'm broke. I would have never selected trading as a career due to my past training that it can't be done. Market Wizards inspired me because I know that if one can do something, then many can do it by following a similar path. I'm thankful for the published data, websites, forums, and successful traders willing to share. All have contributed toward my education. I believe that at least thousands of people are making a living from trading. I'm trying to emulate some of their methods to also achieve a living wage. I'm going into this with eyes wide open. Nobody sold me a bridge in the desert. I've done my own work, designed a method, tested it, and now plan on risking a small portion of my capital. Will it work? I hope so, everything has done well up to now. If not, I'll move on to plan B. Lots of people have tried to scare me with the real world is different than papertrading. I'm thankful I have a strong will. If the market crashes one sec. after I go long, my computer dies, and the FCM goes broke, life will still go on. I don't expect to be rewarded for not assuming risk. Risk and reward doesn't work that way. I'll try and post something about what I'm doing so we can off this treadmill of negativity.
"I'm sorry if I've offended some of you with my life choices" dont worry about it.some of the people on this board need to be offended. give it a shot.you owe yourself that much after all this work.
40, I'm glad you're disregarding the naysayers. People like you is what helped to make this country great. I concur with another poster: "If I could buy calls on you, I would." I trust that you'll be fine.
Here's a chart with the entry/exits for Friday and Today. My method is fairly simple. Buy breakouts and follow with a trailing stop. It's based on volatility. I look at the past five days range and use the smallest range to figure the breakout points. The amount and percentage used change as trades happen. If the market becomes very volatilie, the percentage used will increase before trying to catch a breakout. Likewise the money management changes based on risk, past results of trades, and whether we're in a drawdown or not. The trailing stop is initially a stop and reverse using the amount of the volatility stop as a reversal entry point. When the days range exceeds thresholds, the stop is switched to a parabolic trailing stop. If it's hit we're out without any more trades for the day. If the market trends in one direction all day, I exit 10 sec. before the 4:15 close using a market order. The parabolic stop increment changes based on the slope of the trade to be followed. The slope is calculated by dividing the (current price - entry price) by the number of bars since entry. Then a parbolic factor is calculated to prevent whipsaws.
one of the most difficult things about trading a "system", is actually sticking to the system. it's a heck of a lot easier in paper trading to say that you won't deviate from the plan, but once it's real-time, real-money, you'll have instances where you'll want to tighten your stop, or lock in profits. the key is to stick to your plan... as long as your plan works.
Old, I agree 100% - my biggest problem with automatic systems trading isn't so much that they are mechanical, but that if they fail, you are not likely to understand why they went bad. However, if you learn to trade, are profitable, and then back into system trading, you are far more likely to succeed. However, I have never met someone that went from discretionary trading to system trading. LOL...They realize all that they take into consideration into making a trade, think about how they would translate into a computer program, and laugh out loud... Dynamic sizing can be done in many different ways. One way is based on volatility, where you may have larger size on, but your stop loss is tighter, or vice versa. There are other ways as well, e.g., martingale strategies that, given a positive expentancy, can be shown to increase your equity curve in the most efficient way. 40, Best of luck to you - If my wife and I had not taken risks that we have, whether it be in Real Estate, or emigrating, or crossing the street, we would not be where we are. If I had any suggestions they would be: 1) Don't let the system trade during FED days right before or after the announcement, unless that is how you make your money - LOL. 2) Otherwise, follow the system 100% without question. HOWEVER, I would, especially at the beginning, give yourself 4-6 months of just trading it, but then reevaluate it's "weaknesses" every 4-6 months. Some people do this by re-optimizing the parameters, by using the new "old data," using walk-forward methods. 3) Inspite of the fact that it is extremely boring, make sure that you or someone trained to execute orders is ALWAYS in front of the system AT ALL TIMES in case of a problem. Make sure you have a phone number to call in case lines go down, computers crash, etc, etc. Finally, make sure you understand how options can be used to get yourself out of a locked limit futures position. nitro
Here's another one from last week. This time the first breakout didn't work. The market reversed and the second trade extended the range for the day enough that the parabolic stop was kicked in. The factor used in this trade was .02. Notice how the exit happened just as the market stopped trading down and started to reverse for the day. The money management incremented the number of contracts traded because the first breakout's loss was larger than the average of the past 10 profitable trades. I haven't done anything to the system in 6 months, so you can see it's still working the way it was designed.
As debilitating as some of the comments are from guys who are seen as bitter, cynical, etc, etc, most of what they say is very true...Trading, in and of itself, is very tough...Trying to learn how to trade with financial obligations somewhere down the line makes it that much tougher...The written plan that is sitting in front of you now will most likely be amended enormously once the real money is in the market mainly because you have yet to see the emotional impact price action has on your psyche...I have known quite a few traders who were breakout traders on paper, but in the market they could never buy a rising market or vice versa, they were pure "faders"...On paper, however, since there was no emotional attachment to the outcome, breakout trades were effortless and lulled them into a false sense of security once the real dollars were in the markets... You will learn more about your trading plan in those first few weeks and months of trading than you will with your simulations now...You have to factor in the psychological conditions of what you are planning to do down the line...